Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have to repay it because we nationalised the debt of the private banks and those who advised and audited the banks at the time.

Retaining AIB as a State bank would allow us to retain some form of democratic accountability in respect of organisation. I am not talking about political interference in that regard. This democratic accountability has already had a tangible impact on the lives of AIB customers. The pressure applied by the Oireachtas - especially its committees, of one of which, the finance committee, I am a member - has led to significant movements by AIB on key areas of concern for customers such as standard variable rates and the purchase of distressed mortgages by vulture funds.

These are examples of the leverage that can be used to protect citizens but with any sell-off there will be a transfer of accountability from the Oireachtas to faceless and nameless strangers, the investors to which I refer. As is the case with other banks ruled by private investors, they are either unaware of the hardship faced by certain customers or simply do not care. I doubt if any of them are familiar with the details of the cases with which many of us in this House have had to deal. People cannot sleep at night for fear of the banks chasing them for mortgage arrears. Others were denied tracker rates when they were entitled to them and lost thousands of euro and, in many cases, their homes as a result.The question of bank closures is also linked to this sell-off. When it is no longer profitable to have a branch remain open, a bank that is driven by private investors in search of huge profits will not think twice about shutting down branches and it will not think twice about rural customers and what they might do for a bank. State banks can work and many state banks are successful. Some of the most stable and successful banks in Europe are state banks. The Minister has not addressed this point at all. Of course, Fine Gael is wedded to the privatisation of public assets. It is no wonder the Minister chooses to ignore this option. This is why any decision to sell part of AIB should be subject to a vote of the Oireachtas. I also want the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach to play a greater role in exploring the possibilities for state-owned banks.

I know that the Labour Party motion calls for the sale to go ahead, conditional upon the altering of the fiscal rules to allow for the spending on capital investment. This is an admission by the Labour Party that the fiscal rules are bad for Ireland. The very rules that it campaigned in favour of during the referendum are now bad. I ask the Labour Party to join with us in Sinn Féin and with other progressive forces to have these rules changed. I also take issue with the overly simplistic attempt to portray this as an honourable return of money the Irish people had to pay to bail out the banks. This is wrong on two counts. First, in terms of money it represents a loss. Even the chief executive of AIB this morning-----